Monterey Whalefest 2013: Flukes & Fun

Fernando Herrera, 4, of salinas, paints a Humboldt squid before making a print of the creature. Approaching is his brother, Juancarlos, 7, left. The two were at the Hopkins Marine Station booth at Whalefest Monterey on Sunday.

Whalefest Monterey isn't just about the whales that migrate annually along the Monterey Bay shore. Lots of other sea critters get their moment in the spotlight as well.

Fernando Herrera, 4, of Salinas, earnestly spread paint over the carcass of a juvenile Humboldt squid on Sunday, preparing to roll his own print of the jumbo cephalopod on paper.

His brother, Juan Carlos, 7, displayed his own art work, another copy in paint, as the boys' father, J.C. Herrera, looked on.

"I bring them to all the events here," he said. "It's a hands-on education for the kids. We brought our bikes for the trail, and we're going to take a whale cruise."

Their mom, Rosa, and sister, Krystal, 12, found other things to look at in a row of information tables set up for the 2013 Monterey Whalefest between Custom House Plaza and Fisherman's Wharf.

The boys were drawn to the Hopkins Marine Station exhibit table by the sight of three big squid spread out by marine biology doctoral student Hannah Rosen, who came from Pennsylvania to study the creatures of Monterey Bay.

Hearing from her family back home that the temperature was 9 degrees, Rosen said she was happy to be in sunny, 50-plus degree weather on the Peninsula.

The Humboldt squid "can get really big," she said, though most of those that washed ashore in Monterey Bay in the past year were juveniles.

But they aren't the gargantuan giant squid portrayed in Walt Disney's classic steampunk movie version of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

"They don't grow that big," Rosen said.

The Humboldt squid come and go to Monterey Bay at intervals. "They almost disappeared in 2010, then they showed up last year," she said. "No one knows why, but it might be due to the El Niño weather down south; the warm water pushes them north, where the feeding gets better."

"All sea otter pelts are controlled," he said, marked and labeled under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Otter skulls also gave visitors a chance to compare sea otter with river otter head sizes.

His exhibit drew Remy Entent of Palm Springs, a student at UC Santa Cruz, who rode the bus to the Monterey Peninsula Friday to take part in the two-day festival, which ended Sunday.

An ecology and biology major, she made a point of attending as many of the exhibits, films, lectures and panel discussions, demonstrations, historical tours, environmental education events as she could squeeze in. "Hopefully I'll see the otters in their natural habitat."

Weldon-Smith, originally from Sydney, Australia, married a woman from Santa Cruz after some years of working as a spokesman for nonprofit organizations related to the Australian government on conservation issues in developing countries.

"I didn't want to work in a coffee shop," he commented, "When I could be doing something like working for the Otter Project."

His main job is recruiting volunteers to monitor the bay and shoreline, and report on how humans interact with it, what their activities are, and to talk up the Otter Project to the general public.

Friends of the Monterey Library volunteer Alice Yamanishi said Whalefest drew groups of children from as far away as the San Joaquin Valley, Hollister, Gilroy and King City.